This novel is loosely based on the murder of an Italian journalist, Mino Pecorelli, who in 1979 was shot dead in broad daylight on a busy Roman street and whose murder initially touched off an intense, but brief investigation. The case was dropped for political reasons, and only reopened again in 1993, twenty four years later, when informers in the Maxi Trial told authorities that a well-known Italian senator, Giulio Andreotti, had asked Mafia captain Gaetano Badalamenti to arrange the hit as a personal favor. My story opens just after the reopening of the Maxi Trials in 1992. My protagonist, Paolo Taviani, has returned to Rome to take over Occham's Razor, a bookstore he has inherited from his former employer, Carlo Levi. The story deals with Paolo's psychological conflict: Should he involve himself in the reopening of his uncle's trial, or should he stay out of it? Because of his American wife's renewed Catholic faith and her growing friendship with her religion teacher, Father Dante, my protagonist Paolo is always reminded of the moral implication of both decisions, while his distrust of organized religion spurs him to be cynical about both the trial and his wifes faith.